Increasingly, the healthcare industry is turning to portable electronic medical devices to assist with care of patients. For example, a diabetes patient may use a blood glucose meter, an insulin pump, and/or a continuous glucose meter as part of the patient's medical treatment. Each of these devices is configured with suitable software for operating the device. When the software needs updating, the patient was traditionally required to send the device to the device manufacturer. The device manufacturer would in turn install new versions of the software on the medical device and return the updated device back to the patient. In other situations, a device manufacturer might send a computer readable disk which contains updated versions of the software to either the patient or their healthcare provider. The disk could then be used to update the software on the medical device. Each of these approaches has drawbacks but is in part mandated to ensure that devices comply with government regulations.
Thus, there is a need for a more seamless manner for updating software residing on portable medical devices that is compliant with applicable government regulations. Given the interactions between patients and their healthcare providers, it may be preferable for product updates to be administered by healthcare providers. In such cases, the infrastructure should support the distribution of product updates through an intermediary such as the healthcare provider.
This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.